How The Truth Went Begging

Some memories get ‘burned in’. Though the events were more than 50 years ago, I was haunted by the spectacle of miserable Aborigines begging and trying to sell souvenirs to passengers on the eastbound Trans-Australian train at Ooldea, SA, on the eastern fringe of the Nullarbor Plain.

The Aborigines were clad in rags, and mothers carried infants and toddlers, also in rags.

I was on that train from Kalgoorlie twice, as an 11- and 12-year-old in early and late 1952. On one of those trips I bought from an old Aborigine a kangaroo carved from a forked piece of soft white wood. It bore a singed pattern made with a hot stick or wire. It must have been cheap as my spending money was meagre indeed. This became a treasured possession for several years.

I have a vague memory of the consternation among the train passengers, seeing the pitiable state of the Aborigines. People leant out and put not just money but food and lollies into pleading black hands.

Aborigines converge on the…